The Writing Prompt Boot Camp

Final Post :(

Well, the school year is finally over and with it comes the end of my tenure here at MFA Confidential. I want to thank Writer’s Digest for giving me this wonderful opportunity to reflect on my MFA experience in a magazine with a national readership. It’s been such an honor and a pleasure. Thank you, too, to everyone who followed the blog—it’s been so cool having these conversations about writing with you! Your comments helped me to realize that my struggles are normal and your support and commiseration was perhaps the best part of this experience for me. Finally, thanks to all my friends at Columbia for giving me so much fodder for this column. If I didn’t have such a positive experience in my grad program, I don’t think I could have written this blog in the first place.

I loved the experience at MFA Confidential so much that I am thinking of continuing a blog in the future—right now, I’m just trying to figure out a unique angle because I don’t want to add to the clutter of the web if I’m not writing from a new perspective. But in the meantime, if you’re interested in keeping up with me, feel free to friend me on facebook and I’ll let you know if and when the blog happens.

I’ll close by reiterating some words by John Gardner that I mentioned back in February:
“One must be just a little crazy to write a great novel. One must be capable of allowing the darkest, most ancient and shrewd parts of one’s being to take over the work from time to time.”

I hope that all of us, as we continue our writing lives, are able to tap into those ancient parts of ourselves and harness them into words, to create those stories that already exist within us and are just waiting to be freed.

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